


oh my god they were cellmates

by Arazsya



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Imprisonment, M/M, Verbally Abusive Parent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:49:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24607990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arazsya/pseuds/Arazsya
Summary: It is not the first time that Tjelvar Stornsnasson has woken up in a cell.
Relationships: Edward Keystone/Tjelvar Stornsnasson
Comments: 5
Kudos: 84





	oh my god they were cellmates

It is not the first time that Tjelvar Stornsnasson has woken up in a cell. It won’t be the last. Just something that happens, in his line of work. His parents would be horrified. Whenever he had tried to explain his vocation to them, they’d assumed that he was giving up the great outdoors to go and sit in some musty old library somewhere. Maybe he’d let them believe it – they knew their fishing village and the great snowbound sweep of landscape around it, the long summer days and longer winter nights, when the sky would ignite and his grandmother would tell far-off stories. All the dangers there were familiar and avoidable. They’d never really left, and the idea of Tjelvar doing so had scared them. Probably still does, but at least, they assume, he’s inside.

Maybe, if he’d been like Frobisher, content to teach and tend his houseplants and spend just one season of the year on a comfortable, established excavation, he’d have told them more about what he actually does. But he isn’t, and they’d hate to hear it. All they’d ever find in the wide potential of the wilderness that whispers to Tjelvar of civilisations, dead and lost and forgotten, would be the infinite risk. The fact that sometimes, he wakes up with the stark criss-cross of bars over his vision.

These ones look sturdy, narrow-set – he won’t be able to get his arm out far enough to pick the lock, let alone slip through. At least this time, there are no shackles. No traps. No calm, collected interrogator with a smile as sharp as their knife, waiting to pry some information out of him.

No, compared to some of the places he’s been locked up in, this one is positively pleasant. There’s even a window, high on the opposite wall, outside the cell. Through it, he can just about make out the ankles and boots of people passing – this is no deserted, distant outbuilding where no one will ever know. He can hear footfalls, the faint hum of chatter, from the street beyond. He could scream loud enough to make them listen, if he had to.

“Tjelvar?” 

Tjelvar groans, at the sound, which clashes at his eardrums like a storm-force wave, shaking loose a splitting headache that must have settled while he’d been lying there. He pushes himself onto his back, his brain swimming like it’s passing through every state of matter, and squints out at the blur next to him. It resolves, after a few more seconds, into Edward. He’s sitting, back resting against the wall, shirt rumpled, and Tjelvar feels the usual pang he does at seeing him out of his armour in situations like this. Seems like he never has it on when he needs it these days. Maybe not his fault this time – probably confiscated.

“Edward,” he says. His voice is unexpectedly serviceable, though he’s uncomfortably aware of its every vibration, threatening to jab needles through his skull. 

There’s a bruise, shades of black and purple, mottled painfully onto Edward’s cheek. He frowns at it. Can’t think how it had happened. Knows it shouldn’t be there. Not just because trying to stop people hurting Edward is the last thing that he _does_ remember.

“Anti-magic field?”

Edward nods. He’s not looking Tjelvar’s way, but that’s nothing new. He’s been like that ever since they’d left for England. Instead, he studies the floor, though Tjelvar’s sure that even an architect would only be able to find so much interest there. It’s just stone, the bars drilled into it, not even a faint scattering of straw to prickle the inhabitants in a mockery of comfort.

“Sorry I couldn’t fix your head,” he says, still too quiet, like this whole idiotic visit has stripped him of his voice. “I tried, but they wouldn’t let me–”

“No.” Tjelvar forces himself into a sitting position, struggles to stifle a hiss when something behind his eyes implodes. Obviously doesn’t do well enough, because Edward flinches like Tjelvar had struck at him. “It’s fine. We’ll sort it when we get out.” He waits a short while for the throbbing to stop, then risks peering at Edward a little more closely. “Surely they can’t keep us here too long? What’s the penalty for assaulting a peer?”

Edward doesn’t respond. Just chews at his lip, tucks his arms around himself as if in an effort to shrink.

“Eddie?” Tjelvar prompts. He could reach for Edward’s arm. A world away, on their excavation in Greece, he would. Edward would smile and maybe he would lean into it, on a good day briefly lay his hand over Tjelvar’s, in that way that makes him think that one of these days, one of them is going to risk a kiss and someone will win that digsite betting pool he’s not supposed to know about. But all those casual touches had felt so wrong since they’d left that Tjelvar had stopped, then realised that Edward had first. He doesn’t know if he’s supposed to start again yet. Couldn’t stand to try it and just see discomfort scrawled in large print across Edward’s face.

Probably best to stay where he is anyway, and not upset his head injury any further. 

“Someone I used to know…” Edward coughs, bows his head to stare more directly downwards. “I think he’s still locked up. He might be dead though. They wouldn’t tell me. Wouldn’t let me see him or nothing. But he tried to kill him. Was going to the whole time.”

“Oh.” Tjelvar hesitates, a few more of the things he’d heard over the last few wretched days falling into place. He doesn’t like the picture it all makes. “Well – I definitely wasn’t trying to do that. And it’s a serious accusation, so if he claims I was, I can at least ask for it to be in a courtroom where there’ll be someone who can make sure we’re telling the truth.”

“What _were_ you trying to do?” Edward asks, speaking carefully, wavering a little as if he’s uncertain. “He… you– why’d you do that, Tjelvar? You don’t normally, you… you almost never hit people. Only as a… last resort.” He hesitates, brow knit, puzzling at it all. “So why did you do that?”

“Did…” Tjelvar absorbs himself in trying to straighten his clothes, an attempt at distraction. It’s not like they don’t need it. They’re formal and uncomfortable and have utterly failed to survive being shoved about by the police. “Did you not hear what he was saying?”

“Yeah,” Edward says, with an awkward, one-shouldered shrug. “No. I’ve heard it all before, so…”

Tjelvar puts a little more effort into breathing normally, and after a couple of minutes, it even starts to feel natural again. It isn’t. _He_ had heard it. Had heard _all of it_ , every belittling comment and every pointed dismissal and every sharp laugh since they’d stepped into that house. The Duke of York had looked Tjelvar up and down, scathing even before he’d opened his mouth, then turned to Edward and asked _what’s this one using you for?_ , and it had only got worse. Staying outwardly placid for so long had been such an exercise in self-control that his parents would have been proud.

“Why are you here, too?” he asks. It even comes out levelly, like it’s not being pushed out past something that makes him want to raze the House of Plantagenet to the ground. “You didn’t do anything to him, so why did they lock you up as well?”

“Assaulting a police officer,” Edward recites. Like he’s been made to repeat it.

“Really?” Tjelvar frowns at him, but Edward still won’t look back, and Tjelvar can hardly read him when he can hardly see his face. “You? I’d have thought that was…”

“There was no call for him to hit you like that,” Edward says, quietly. One of his hands twitches, ever so slightly, but there’s no morningstar for it to smooth the handle of. “He’d already pulled you away. There wasn’t any danger. He was just showing off for the Duke. It wasn’t right. I told him so. He didn’t like being told.”

“Well.” Tjelvar chews on that for a moment, tries not to dwell on the hope that Edward had accepted the policeman’s point of view after the first blow. “What your… what _the Duke_ said about you wasn’t right either. See?”

“Not really,” Edward says. Back to biting off his syllables like he doesn’t think he’s allowed them. “You used to say things like that too. In the Alps.”

“And that wasn’t right.” Tjelvar’s chest pangs as hard as his head, and he wants to go off into gentler explanations and apologies, but he doubts Edward’s in a place to hear them right now. “Trust me?”

Edward nods, and finally casts him a sideways glance – the second he does, Tjelvar can see him weighing up an apology. The idea of one, from him, makes Tjelvar’s ribs ache like a trap about to be sprung. Last time he’d snapped they’d both ended up here. Not that he regrets a second of it. Wouldn’t have minded a few more scuff marks over his knuckles for his trouble.

“Anyway,” he says, before Edward can start. “I hope you won’t take offence, but this is a _marked_ improvement over spending another second in that house _._ It was a historian’s nightmare in there. Did you _see_ those tapestries? They were hung completely out of sequence. Frobisher would have been furious.” He blusters on about that for a minute, expanding on how utterly ridiculous that order was, that he’d be willing to forgive the fact that they were clearly from different artists and time periods if the narrative had been preserved at all, rather than some nonsense about how a city had been un-invaded. Edward listens, and perhaps he takes some comfort from the familiarity of it, because his shoulders start to slump a little. He’s heard a lot of these, after all, about people who have never deigned to care for one second about history. It’ll do, for now.

Beyond the bars, there’s an abrupt flicker of motion, and Tjelvar throws an arm out towards it in a grand gesture that sets his balance wavering dangerously.

“The _company_!” he declares, as vehemently as he can. “So much better in here.”

Edward’s gaze settles on the rat, and it watches him back, unconcerned. It’s a plump brown thing, with small, bright eyes set in a sharp face. Must live well, here. It considers them a little longer, then clearly notices that they’ve not been given any food yet, and skitters off again into a crack between the stones in the far wall. Edward’s attention lingers on the place where it had been, and a small smile starts to pull at the corners of his mouth.

Tjelvar had almost forgotten what that looked like. Never again, he decides. Once they’re back on the train and the distance between them and the Duke of York stretches out into something that can only be quickly crossed by dragonwing, they’ll be far enough to talk, and he’ll find a way to explain that if it’s what Edward wants, they don’t ever have to come back.

First, they just have to get through whatever this is. 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [oh my god they were cellmates [podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29105304) by [KD reads (KDHeart)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KDHeart/pseuds/KD%20reads)




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